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This post is one of several describing a single process that is essential to controlling an agile project, namely Earned Value Management. It is labeled 2.13 on the agile project management process grid because it covers the second knowledge area of “Value Driven Delivery”, which monitors how the project manages the constraints of time, cost, scope, and value; it also is the thirteenth process in that knowledge area. In particular, it is one of the processes done during the “Control” process group in any given project.

This post is the last of five describing the process 2.13 Earned Value Management. The posts have covered

the similarities between Earned Value Management on a traditional, waterfall project, and an agile project

the differences between Earned Value Management on a traditional, waterfall project, and an agile project

the way that Earned Value Management is measured in an agile project using traditional reporting metrics of Earned Value (EV), Planned Value (PV), and Actual Cost (AC)

Using the three building blocks mentioned above, you can get the following four metrics that show how a project is doing with respect to the schedule and budget:

Formula

Equation

Schedule Variance (SV)

SV = EV – PV

Schedule Performance Index (SPI)

SPI = EV / PV

Cost Variance (CV)

CV = EV – AC

Cost Performance Index (CPI)

CPI = EV / AC

Schedule Variance and Schedule Performance Index both tell you the same thing, that is, whether the project is on time or not, but they do it with different sets of numbers. An SV that is positive means that the project is ahead of schedule (i.e., you’re completing more work than planned), and an SV that is negative means that the project is behind schedule (i.e., you’ve not completed all the work you planned). An SPI tells you this as well, but the SPI that is greater than 1 means that the project is ahead of schedule, whereas an SPI that is less than 1.0 means that the project is behind schedule.

The Cost Variance and Cost Performance Index in a similar way show whether a product is under budget (with a positive CV or a CPI that is greater than 1.0) or over budget (with a negative CV or a CPI that is less than 1.0). Those are the traditional EVM metrics, that can be used in an agile project as well.

Here are some EVM metrics that are strictly geared for agile projects. They are based on the assumption that progress should be measured against the release level (not the iteration level), and that A-EVM calculations are done at the end of each iteration.

Measure

EVM Definition

Formula

Performance Measure

Baseline (PMB)

Total number of story points planned for a release (SP)

PMB = SP

Schedule Baseline (SB)

Total number of iterations (IP) multiplied by iteration length (L)

SB = IP * L

Planned Percent

Complete (PPC)

Number of the current iteration (i) divided by the total number of planned iterations (lP)

PPC = i/ lP

Actual Percent

Complete (APC)

Number of iteration story points completed (s) divided by the total number of story points planned (SP)

APC = s/

However, these calculations are not universally accepted within the agile community, which just goes to show that agile project management is definitely a work in progress.

The next post will discuss the process 3.20 Information Radiators Monitoring.